Vi’s eyes burned holes in the woman. The bitch. Just let her take out that gag.
“Who is the extremely talented Vürdmeister that put this spell on you?”
Thoughts of escape evaporated. It was a bluff. It had to be a bluff. But how?
Nysos. What did the bastard do to me? It was just what the Godking would do, put some fucking spell on her. Hadn’t she imagined something of the sort when she was in the throne room? What if it hadn’t been her imagination?
“Because that spell is really something,” Sister Ariel said. “I’ve been studying it for the past six hours while you’ve been unconscious, and I still can’t tell what it does. One thing I do know is that it’s trapped. And he’s—it definitely bears the marks of being a man’s magic—he’s anchored it in some interesting ways. I’m considered strong among my sisters. One of the stronger magae to attain the colors in the last fifty years. And it’s too strong for me to break, that’s clear immediately. You see, there are weaves you can unravel and there are weaves you have to burst—Fordaean knots if you will—are you familiar with Fordaean knots? Never mind. This spell has both. The traps might be unraveled. But the core weave will have to be broken most carefully. Even if I could do it myself, it would probably leave you with some permanent mental damage.”
“Nnn ga.”
“What? Oh.” Sister Ariel stayed seated cross-legged and murmured. The bonds fell from Vi’s face. She spat out the handkerchief—it had been wrapped around a rock, the bitch!—and breathed. She didn’t grab her Talent. Not yet.
“The rest?” she asked, gesturing to her other bonds.
“Mm. Sorry.”
“It’s a little hard to talk to you lying on my side.”
“Fair enough. Loovaeos.”
Vi’s body was pulled upright and scooted backward to a tree.
“So that’s your bait? A bluff about some spell on me that we won’t be able to take off until we get to the Chantry—where it just so happens it will be impossible for me to escape?”
“That’s it.”
Vi pursed her lips. Was it her imagination, or was there a slight glow around Ariel? “That’s pretty good bait,” she admitted.
“Better than we offer most girls.”
“You always kidnap girls?”
“Like I already said, this is my first time. It doesn’t usually come down to kidnapping. The sisters who do the recruiting have lots of ways to be persuasive. I was deemed too tactless for such work.”
Big surprise. “What’s the usual bait?” Vi asked.
“Just to be like the recruiters, who tend to be beautiful, charming, respected, and—not least—always get their own way.”
“And the hook is?” Vi asked.
“Oh, we’re continuing the fishing metaphor?”
“What?” Vi asked.
“Never mind. The hook is servitude and tutelage. It’s like an apprenticeship, seven to ten years of service before you become a full Sister. Then you’re free.”
Vi had had enough of apprenticeship to last her for ten lives. She sneered. Keep her talking. I might as well learn what I can. “You said I’m not really a wetboy. I do all the wetboy stuff.”
“Have trouble with the Embrace of Darkness, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Invisibility. You can’t do it, can you?”
How did she know that? “That’s just a legend. It drives up prices. No one goes invisible.”
“I can see you’re going to spend a lot of time unlearning things you think you know. True wetboys can go invisible. But mages don’t do invisibility. Your Talent has to practically live in your skin. Invisibility requires a total body awareness so profound that it extends to feeling how light is touching every part of your skin. What you are is something different—in fact, something forbidden by a treaty a hundred and thirty—umm—thirty-eight years old. The Alitaerans would be shall we say highly overwrought if we’d trained you this way. You see, if you mastered a few more things, you’d be a warmage. Oh, you’re going to cause the Speaker a few headaches, I can see that already.”
“Fuck you,” Vi said.
Sister Ariel leaned over and slapped her. “You will speak civilly.”
“Fuck you,” Vi said without intonation.
“Let’s settle something now, then,” Sister Ariel said, standing. “Loovaeos uh braeos loovaeos graakos.” Vi was yanked to her feet. Her bonds dropped away. A dagger flew from her pack and dropped at her feet.
Vi didn’t reach for the knife. She didn’t stop to take the time. She cursed her Talent into a titanic punch into Sister Ariel’s stomach.
The force of the blow blasted Sister Ariel off her feet. She flipped over the fire and skidded across the dirt on the other side, but Vi didn’t move. She didn’t even try to run. She was looking at her drooping hand.
It was like she’d punched steel. Bones were sticking out of her skin. Her knuckles were a mass of blood. Her wrist was broken. Both bones in her forearm had snapped. One of them was pressing against the skin from underneath, threatening to jut out.
Sister Ariel stood and shook her big, loose dress. Dust puffed out. She snorted as she looked at Vi, who was cradling her arm.
“You should really strengthen your bones before you strike with your Talent.”
“I did,” Vi said. She was going into shock. She sat—or maybe fell.
“Then you shouldn’t punch an armored maja.” Ariel tsked as she looked at Vi’s destroyed hand. “It seems you’ve more Talent than sense. Not to worry, that’s common enough. We know how to deal with it. The truth is, Vi, that your body magic is untrained, undefined, and no match for any schooled sister. You could be so much more. Do you even know how to heal yourself?”
Vi was shaking. She looked up dumbly.
“Well, if you ever want to use your hand again, I can heal it. But it hurts and I’m slow.”
Vi offered up her arm, mute.
“Just a second, I need to ward Uly’s ears. Otherwise your screams will wake her.”
“I won’t—I won’t scream,” Vi swore.
As it turned out, she lied.
Logan froze. Another time, he might have tried to get everyone down to build their tower again once Gorkhy was gone, but he knew he’d never summon the strength to try it again.
“What’s going on down here?” Gorkhy demanded.
What? We’ve been silent. How did he hear anything?
Pressing in to the wall as much as he could, Logan looked up and saw that Fin was doing the same thing, and, sitting on his shoulders, Lilly was too.
Torchlight slanted through the grate as Gorkhy came the last few feet. From where he was standing now, Lilly was only a few feet from his shoes. With the sheer edges of the Hole below the grate, though, the torchlight wouldn’t fall on Lilly unless he stepped closer.
They heard Gorkhy sniffing, and the torchlight shifted as he leaned forward. He cursed them. “Animals. You stink worse than usual.” Gods, he was smelling Lilly. “Why don’t you wash yourselves?”
This could go on for a while. If it was a bad day, he’d empty his bladder onto them. Logan shook with rage and weakness. There was no reason for a Gorkhy. There was no understanding it. Gorkhy gained nothing by tormenting them, but he did, and he loved it.